Green Party co-leader
Adrian Ramsey has criticized plans by energy regulator OFGEM to review the
price cap on energy bills every three months, instead of every six months.
The change would not
come into force until October and, the regulator says, will make the energy
market fairer and more resilient to shocks of the type seen recently.
OFGEM chief executive Jonathan Brearley told Sky News
"A more frequent price cap would reflect the most up to date and accurate
energy prices and mean when prices fall from the current record highs,
customers would see the benefit much sooner”[1].
Adding that it will also help “energy suppliers more
accurately predict how much energy they need to purchase for their customers,
reducing the risk of further supplier failures which ultimately push up costs
for consumers."
Adrian Ramsey said “Changing the goalposts in this way will
do nothing to help the millions of households struggling to put food on the
table and pay eye-watering energy bills. Energy companies may think that such
tinkering will mitigate the cost-of-living crisis, but they're not fooling
anyone” [2].
The plan has also been criticized finance expert Martin Lewis,
speaking to Sky News he said it was an anti-competitive measure that would stop
energy firms from undercutting the price cap.
An IPSOS poll conducted for Sky News revealed that one in
five Britons are concerned about the rising cost of living and that one in four
have resorted to skipping meals to save money [3].
Charity Action for Children say families they work with
have reported having to wear coats to keep warm and ‘living in the dark’
because they cannot afford to switch on lights.
Director of Policy at Action for Children Imran Hussain
told the Guardian “The worst pain and misery of the cost-of-living crisis is
being felt by children in low-income families, yet the government is refusing
to target help for these children or accept that it needs to rethink its huge
cut to universal credit” [4].
Adrian Ramsey said “We need measures that put money back in
people's pockets now. That’s why the Green Party has argued for restoring the
£20 uplift to Universal Credit and doubling it to £40 per week, in addition to
other benefits. We also want to provide every household with an additional £320
to help them pay for spiralling energy costs”.
The need to act on the cost-of-living crisis is made more
urgent by the impact it is having on people’s health.
A YouGov poll conducted for the Royal College of Physicians
(RCP) found that out of the 2001 people questioned 55% felt their health had
been made worse by higher bills for food and heating.
The impact is being felt, the data shows, by people with
existing and sometimes life-threatening health conditions who cannot afford to
travel to hospital for treatment.
People questioned about the
impact of the rising cost of living on their health who reported it as being
negative cited increased heating costs (84%), and the rising cost of food (78%)
as contributing factors.
Speaking to the Guardian Dr Andrew Goddard, the president
of the RCP said “The cost-of-living crisis has barely begun, so the fact that
one in two people is already experiencing worsening health should sound alarm
bells, especially at a time when our health service is under more pressure than
ever before” [5].
In addition to the measures he outlined to address the
short-term impact of the crisis action must be taken to protect people from further
energy price rises. Adrian Ramsey said “we need to see a massive nationwide
insulation programme over the next decade. This could reduce energy bills
dramatically while ensuring that everyone has energy efficient homes to live
in”.
Adding that “the introduction of a carbon tax on the fossil
fuel companies - who are making colossal profits on the back of the
cost-of-living crisis - would help pay for such a retrofit programme”,
something Green Party law makers in the Republic of Ireland have successfully
campaigned for [6].
[6] https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/government-launches-the-national-retrofitting-scheme/#
